I Wonder if She Read the Letter that I Left

Landing in the airport at Quito, Mariscal Sucre, is one of the most amazing and terrifying experiences that you can have in a plane. I´ve never had the chance to describe this before, but It´s amazing because it´s simply beautiful. You come out of zero visibility in the clouds and the mist of the mountains, la neblina, into the valley where you begin to see, if you´re brave enough to look out the window, all of the little houses that occupy the mountainsides and the afueras (outskirts) of the city. Quito itself is found between mountains of the Andes, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha and surrounded by the Cayambe, el Chimborazo, el Cotopaxi, not far from the middle of the world, la mitad del mundo. Imagine coming out of the mist into a valley between so many mountain ranges, and, all of a sudden, a city appears out of nowhere. Now the terrifying part is the same, but you can add to it that the airport is located right in the middle of a residential district of the city, surrounded by homes and buildings. According to what I´ve been told, the airport was built outside of the city, but the politicians sold the land around it and houses were constructed there. The plane that I was on came down with perfection and something unique to Ecuador happened, everyone on the plane started to applaud the pilot.
So here I am, in Quito, Ecuador staying with great friends a few blocks from the Panamericana, the highway that extends from Alaska to the Patagonia in Argentina. I´ll be here for a couple more weeks. I´ve really been surpised by the the nostalgia I´ve felt for Quito in this first week, I´ve been here before, but I didn´t know that a return trip would provoke nostalgia. I find myself laughing inside every time I get on a bus and nearly break my neck from the driver´s "talents" with the gear box. Quito is small, but completely populated from one mountainside to the other. I assure you that I didn´t miss the traffic. The congestion from the cars here is such that they instituted something called Pico y Placa, which means that you can´t drive your car during peak hours during a certain day of the week based on your liscense plate number. Everyone has a day of the week like this. I´ve heard varying opinions on whether this helps or not, but what is clear is that you can simply leave earlier and come home later, causing congestion at different times, or you can register more that one vehicle to drive.
If you would like a good idea of just what Quito is like, google some images and check out the Wikipedia page on it, it truly is unique. Imagine a very large city in length, but very small in width. It really just goes on and on between mountain ranges. Where I´m staying is more of an industrial district, more outside of the city, if you continue on the Panamericana you get to whats known as the Nuevo Centro, the new center, which is very modern, with its shopping centers, metropolitan park, etc. Further on is the Centro, which is simply hermoso (beautiful). Further on, the original Centro contains classic Spanish Colonial constructions, incredible cathedrals, La Plaza Grande (here you can find the presidential palace), narrow pedestrian walk-ways and things you´ve never seen if you´ve never been in Latin America. Overlooking everything, high above the city, is the Virgen of Quito del Panecillo, she represents the Virgen María as described in the the book of Apocalypse in the bible: a woman with wings, with a serpient chained and held under her feet, which represents the beast of 666. Do you think she´s protecting the city like they say?
As I finish here, I write thinking on many things. I have been quite busy this week, registering visas, obtaining legal identification, getting vaccinated against typhoid, etc., but I´m still thinking on a lot of people and things that I´ve left behind. I wonder if my best friend got my message when I called the other day, I wonder if anyone has shed tears over my departure, I wonder if they miss me like I miss them and I wonder if she read the letter that I left.

Free Radiation, Compliments of the Charming TSA

I find myself, yet again, sitting in an airport terminal waiting on another completely inconvenient connecting flight. No worries though, I'm following the proper sequence of airport etiquette, which means I'm ridiculously sleep deprived, full of bad coffee and feeling generally crappy. Thanks to the TSA's revolutionary, "hands up sir," full body scan, I have also received a morning radiation dosage, adequate for killing small woodland creatures. This is round one of a series of 3 flights; if I'm still in control of my mental faculties by the time I reach Charlotte, I will update. This is also considering the folks at Charlotte are as accommodating as Indy and its free Wifi.

Final Countdown, contando los días

Last night was my last visit, for a while, to the old corner pub, Sonka. My best friend Nick introduced me to that place, I'm going to miss it, but I'm going to miss him more. The departure is less than a handful of days away now. Mixed feelings, as can be expected at this point.
Chris

Start from one, start from none

I should think that there are a number (likely a large one) of journals, or "blogs" if you must, out there in which the writer is embarking on a "life-changing" travel experience and they decide to share the details of just how much that experience changes them. One thing I have found from previous such travels is that, after a while, people simply get tired of hearing about your amazing life altering experiences; they weren't there, they didn't do what you did, life continued while you were gone and you need to get over it and catch back up to pace with them. After I spent so much time in Argentina, returning to the states was like being a foreigner in my own country, I lost many friends, made many drastic changes and life was typically hard for the following years. Fortunately, I kept some of the best people close and they're still around to see me leave yet again. 
With the entries that I plan to write here, I hope to do my best to engage you, the reader. I hope not to bore you with self-centered details about me and my reactions, but rather relay my encounters, dilemmas, incidents, challenges, successes and failures to bring you closer to what I am doing. This was something I completely failed to do on previous trips. By reading this, I hope you will feel like you're right alongside me, as if I never left and we never fell out. Maybe if I can do that, you'll still be around to care and be a curious but informed listener when I get back, whenever I get back.

Many of you know that I am leaving for Ecuador on the 23rd of this month, August, which is less than a week away. The suitcases have yet to be packed, yet I'm still feeling more and more anxious about those threatening loose ends and that unfinished business that lingers, things left unsaid and undone, but it will always be like that and I will never have all of the words, time or strength to do or say everything I would like to. 

I will be going, for the first time, to the Ecuadorian Amazon, to an Eco-Reserve and Technical High School known as Yachana Foundation (yachana.com) to do my best to teach as a coordinator of Language Arts and the Humanities. This is something that I feel comfortable with, I know I have the necessary experience to do it, but I'm am, none the less, nervous and not knowing exactly what to expect. It will have to be, in many ways, a sink or swim process and God knows I'm used to that.  

My hope is that this new part of my life will be something that fulfills me in a way that I really need and, on a less selfish note, I hope that I can do something important and significant for the students and people of Yachana and the Amazon. As Guevara said:  

Me siento tan patriota de Latinoamérica, de cualquier país de Latinoamérica, como el que más y, en el momento en que fuera necesario, estaría dispuesto a entregar mi vida por la liberación de cualquiera de los países de Latinoamérica, sin pedirle nada a nadie, sin exigir nada, sin explotar a nadie. (I feel such a patriotism for Latin America, for any country in Latin America, that in the moment it might be necessary, I would be ready to yield my life for the liberation of any Latin American nation, without asking anybody anything, without demanding anything, without exploiting anyone.)

I could only hope to be so selfless.  

So, if you would like to know a little bit more about Yachana and the cause, please do check out the website and watch the video below. 

Hasta pronto queridos amigos, talk to you soon dear friends,

Chris